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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Set Sail and Holland at Oxford Art Factory, Sydney

SET SAILHOLLAND
Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, 15/12/11

On Thursday night, indie pop
Sydney-siders Set Sail headlined the Chasing Summer tour at Oxford Art Factory. Despite Sydney's depressing, unseasonably shit
weather, inside, the feel of summer flowed freely. If you closed your
eyes you could almost taste the salt in the air and feel the sand
between your toes.

I would be lying if I didn't admit
that
part of Set Sail's appeal is the fact that there's something on offer
for every teenage girl's tastes. Set Sail are an undeniably handsome
band. Each member sports a vastly different look but somehow they
mesh together perfectly onstage to make beautiful, happy music. Commendations to the wonderfully
enthusiastic violinist who played with so much passion that several
times he snapped the bow chords and eventually, snapped the entire
bow in half. As if it had happened hundreds of times before, without
hesitation he simply began to play the instrument like a guitar with
his fingers.

At one point, the band invited the
single members of the crowd to pair up and dance on-stage. Set
Sail are certainly a group that know how to engage an audience. They managed to
make the night overwhelmingly fun and had everyone
in the room singing, dancing, smiling and clapping, even with a
remarkably upbeat rendition of the Verve's Bittersweet Symphony.

Usually I hate encores. They are a
cliché. They make me incredibly angry. But when three band members
remove their shirts for the encore, I can make an exception and
applaud along with everyone else in the room.

Opening for Set Sail were Brisbane
four-piece, Holland. Not much for small talk and playing to an
audience that started out more concerned with their position in line
at the bar, Holland were left to win over the room with nothing but
their talent. Which they did. One of the things that sets them
apart from your average generic indie-folk band is that frontman
Jarryd Klapper can actually sing. Amazingly. When he hit each high
note, he managed to bring near silence to the room.

It was an all-round perfect summer night, a
brief reprieve from the reality of the freezing wind and spitting
rain on Oxford Street that no doubt made everyone in the room yearn
for the summer that us Sydney-siders have so far been robbed of.